Raymond Buckey Faces the Law

Zip Dobyns

Much of the following article appeared in Kosmos, the
quarterly journal of the International Society for Astrological Research. We
did not have enough contributions for the journal so I ended up writing a long
article on Raymond Buckey. Now, I am out of time, scheduled to leave for my
seminar in Montana, so a slightly revised version of Raymond is going into The
Mutable Dilemma. I am just leaving out a little on current patterns and
adding some asteroids to the Kosmos version. A few people are
subscribers to both journals, but I think not many.

The McMartin school case may not be famous in the rest of
the world, but southern California has been reading about it for seven years.
Opinions are deeply divided as to the guilt or innocence of the McMartin
family, and so was the jury at the end of the first trial. The McMartin
preschool had been quite successful for many years. It was a family affair,
founded by the grandmother, Virginia McMartin. Her daughter, Peggy McMartin
Buckey, and her grandson Raymond Buckey, were part of the teaching staff.
Virginia McMartin was born on July 23, 1907 and Peggy Buckey was born on November 18, 1926, but we have no birth times for them. Raymond was a teacher’s aide from
his teen years, and he began working full time at the school in 1981 after a
year of college. The first complaint of child molestation by Raymond was made
on August 12, 1983 by the mother of a 2 1/2 year-old boy who attended the
preschool. Over a period of six years, the parents of 125 children brought
complaints against Raymond, his mother, and seven other current or former staff
members. Over the years, the other defendants were released, but Peggy
McMartin Buckey and Raymond Buckey continued to be charged with both the sexual
molestation of many young children and also with the performance of satanic
rituals with the children which included both human and animal sacrifices. The
family lost everything to pay for their legal defense, and the trial holds the
record in California for duration and expense. On January 18, 1990, the jury found Raymond Buckey innocent of 40 of the more lurid charges. Peggy
Buckey was found innocent of all 12 of the charges brought against her. The
jury was unable to come to a unanimous verdict on 12 of the sexual charges
against Raymond. They accepted the evidence that the children had been
molested but did not feel that there was conclusive evidence that Raymond had
done it. Hence the new trial at which Raymond is the only defendant, facing
the eight out of 12 counts on which the District Attorney sought a new trial.
Raymond is charged with the abuse of three girls between 1979 and 1983.

On April 13, 1990, as the date for the new trial approached,
relatives of the children who claimed they were molested started frantically
digging under the former school, looking for the tunnels described by the
children through which they were supposedly taken to the sites of the rituals
and sexual activity. The district attorney’s office had drilled down only six
inches and found nothing. After the parents began their dig, a former FBI
chief and close friend of one of the McMartin parents agreed to oversee the
search. He got help from a research archaeologist, Gary Stickel, who dug down
seven feet and actually found some apparently filled-in tunnels just before the
school was bulldozed to be replaced by a three story office building with an
underground parking lot. The bulldozers arrived on May 29, so any remaining
evidence is now lost forever. Among the artifacts found by the archaeologists
was a plate with a pentagram which is often used in witchcraft rituals. The
evidence of tunnels and witchcraft is of little use in the new trial since all
of the ritual charges were dismissed by the jury, but the parents of the
children wanted to vindicate their claims even if nothing more could be done
legally. On June 1, 1990 the prosecution rested its case, having presented
only 11 witnesses in a period of 13 days in contrast to the 15 months of the initial
trial.

Physical examinations of the children are reported to have
substantiated their claims of sexual abuse, but the children were very young
and some of the jurors felt that the psychologists who worked with them to
bring out their experiences had asked leading questions and gotten slanted
information. Some of the children also presented contradictory testimony on
different occasions, or were simply unable to remember what had happened a full
ten years earlier. A local Episcopal church which some children claimed was
the site of some of the animal sacrifices was tested for possible blood stains
but nothing was found. In a further complication, the mother who first claimed
that her child had been molested and who started the case was later declared to
be somewhat mentally unbalanced and she died while the case was being tried.
So the whole affair remains clouded with uncertainty as to what really
happened.

Thanks to Lois Rodden’s Data News, we have a recorded
birth time for Raymond Buckey. I do not think that one can determine details
of a life from the horoscope since any pattern in astrology can be handled well
or badly. But whether or not Raymond is guilty, he has had some dramatic
experiences during the last decade as he watched his family lose everything and
he spent years in jail without being allowed out on bail. Raymond was born on May 24, 1958 at 9:38 A.M. in Hawthorne, California; 33 N 55, 118 W 21.

Problems involving sensuality in general, including
sexuality, involve the fixed dilemma. Raymond has Ceres, Uranus and Moon in
Leo in the first house with Ceres square the north lunar node and Neptune in Scorpio in the fourth house and Mercury in Taurus in the tenth square all three
Leo factors. Leo and the fifth house (and of course the Sun) represent our
capacity to procreate children while Cancer, the fourth house and the Moon
represent our capacity to care for the children after we get them. Ceres is a
key to one’s experience of being nurtured as a child and also of the capacity
to nurture others. With both Ceres and the Moon in the first house of personal
identity, Raymond was identified with a “mother figure” (which could be a
grandmother) as a personal role model and could have been drawn into nurturing
others. The fourth house factors also emphasize the potential importance of
home, parent, or parenting. But the squares from the first to the fourth house
show conflict between the right to do what one pleases (letter one of our
alphabet) and being either dependent on or protective of others. The Cancer
Ascendant square Jupiter in the fourth house reinforces this conflict. As with
all conflicts in astrology (life), they are handled successfully if we can find
a compromise which lets us do what we please some of the time as long as we
also recognize the rights of others. Juno rising and exactly square Jupiter
further reinforces the fixed dilemma since Juno is very like a female Pluto,
dealing with joint pleasures, possessions and power, needing to remember that a
goal of life involves learning to master the appetites partly out of respect
for the rights of others. Letter two, including Taurus, symbolizes our own
pleasure, possessions, and power which need to be integrated with the rights of
others (letter eight).

Pluto (Scorpio) in Leo in the second (Taurus) house is
similar to a fixed T-square, repeating the message of the fixed dilemma, and it
is square the Sun (Leo) in early Gemini in the eleventh (Aquarius) house for
further emphasis on the need to handle the physical senses and power. Tension
in relationships is possible with both the true lunar nodes in early
Taurus-Scorpio and the mean nodes in late Aries-Libra, and the nodes also
square the Ascendant while Venus squares Juno as well as the Ascendant. The
nodes across the fourth and tenth houses, especially in cardinal or mutable and
in air-fire signs, suggest changes or stress and sometimes separation involving
parents. The south node (as a lesson) in Aries in the tenth (Capricorn) house
suggests a contest between self-will and the limits of self-will whether the
limits are set by natural or cultural laws, by authority figures, or by one’s
own conscience. Raymond’s fire grand trine is a warning of the danger of
over-emphasizing self-will and fighting the limits.

Saturn is our other key to lessons and Raymond has it just
inside the fifth house in his grand fire trine but also quincunx the Ascendant
and square his Mars in Pisces in the ninth house. The house fits a lesson
involving children and is an appropriate placement for a teacher whose
profession involves children. But the conflict aspects to Mars and to the
Ascendant (equivalent to Mars) repeat the issue of self-will (Mars and
Ascendant) in conflict with the limits (Saturn). The cardinal signs, houses
(angular) and planets reinforce the issue of power. Combinations of the fixed
and cardinal conflict aspects often mark a power-struggle life. The individual
has to find ways to compete which are healthy, through games, sports, a
competitive business, or fighting for causes. If the individual lacks
self-confidence (is identified with the helpless child side of Cancer, Ceres,
Moon), and feels that the world has the power, there is a possibility of only
feeling safe when dealing with weaker people. Also, witchcraft and other
shamanic rituals are commonly practiced as ways to gain power over the world.

Raymond’s Vesta-Sun conjunction is another relevant clue. I
have seen this pattern with many wonderful healers, but also with people with
sexual problems. The Sun, as indicated above, shows the capacity to procreate
children and is an important key to our capacity to handle sex and love. Vesta
can mark the vestal virgin who lives for her work and gives up personal
relationships in order to be completely committed to the work, so putting the
two principles together can be a problem. Vesta’s octile (semisquare) to Juno
(the marriage asteroid) and its trioctile (sesquisquare) to Jupiter (in Libra, a
sign of marriage) add emphasis to the likelihood of tension in relationships.
The tension could be as basic as wanting to do well in both the areas of work
and love and feeling pressured by time. Or there could be self-criticism and
self-doubt about being loved and reluctance to risk rejection which results in
avoidance of peers. The close involvement of Raymond’s mother in his life and
his association of love and sex with mother-child factors could also suggest
that he was led into some of the activities by his mother. I really wonder
whether the full story will ever be revealed.

To summarize what we have seen, Raymond’s chart shows a
focus on power and dependency (his own or children or animals which tend to be
relatively helpless). He is identified with a strong mother and/or grandmother
and stayed in their orbit, working for them. We can’t say that he is guilty,
but the horoscope does fit the psychological conflicts which would be
appropriate for the crimes of which he is accused. We will see what the next
jury decides.

Astrology offers us many choices when we seek to understand
the current issues in our lives. All astrologers use transits; the planetary
positions in the sky at the time of an event or future positions which might
signal times of opportunity or challenge. Transits are certainly one key to
the potentials of any given time, but I have seen many cases where they were
not adequate to explain a dramatic event. I think this is because they lack
chart angles unless one is looking at a past event with a specific moment of
occurrence. Angles (the MC, Ascendant, and to a lesser degree the East Point and Antivertex axes across the horoscope) can be even more important than the
planets as keys to major events when lives are really changed. The angles are
the height of the cardinal principle, especially the MC and Ascendant axes
which are equivalent to the rulers of the cardinal signs; Mars (like the
Ascendant), Saturn (like the MC), Moon (like the IC), and Venus (more
ambiguously, like the Descendant). The East Point and the Antivertex are like
auxiliary Ascendants but only important when they have close aspects to one or
more planets.

With the other forms of current patterns, progressions,
arcs, and returns, we have current angles which can hold an aspect for months
or years in contrast to the transiting angles which move about one degree every
four minutes. My preferred system for understanding the unfolding of a life is
the “day-for-a-year” system which is usually called secondary progressions. I
am including Raymond’s chart progressed to August 12, 1983 when Raymond was first accused of sexual molestation of a child and to January 19, 1990 when he was acquitted of most of the charges. We can see that in the years prior to
Raymond’s arrest, progressed (P) Juno, the asteroid which is most like Pluto,
wanting sex and a mate, was conjunct Ceres, the asteroid associated with the
mother-child relationship, in the sign of Leo (sex and love). P Ascendant was
conjunct P Ceres, also in Leo and in the first house. P Ascendant had just
ended a conjunction with natal Moon but P Ceres was still in the one-degree orb
that is permitted in all systems of progressions and directions. These aspects
would be appropriate for marriage and the procreation of a child but could also
fit sexual activity with a child. P Saturn remained in a very long quincunx to
Juno, showing strain in the areas of love-sex-children (fifth house) and
relating to a mate (Juno) which was in Cancer, again bringing in the idea of
children or dependency.

P Sun conjunct P Mercury in Gemini fits the blaze of media
publicity which followed the case, and the twelfth house position fits the
uncovering of hidden facts. Raymond was charged with starting the molestation
in 1979 when his P Sun was opposite Saturn, a very appropriate aspect for a
lesson involving children, sex, power, the LAW, etc. P Sun would also have
formed a grand trine to Chiron and Jupiter, both associated with relationships
since Chiron is in the eighth house and Jupiter in Libra. The trines encourage
us to feel that we know what we want and have a right to it, especially when
fire is involved. Many astrologers focus too much on the signs and houses and
forget about the nature of the planets which are by far the most important
factors. The Sun is fire. Jupiter is fire. And I think the Chiron is also
fire, with a meaning very similar to Jupiter—a search for the Absolute in some
form, so this combination is actually a grand trine of fire factors in air
signs in water houses. The fire and air would normally be very open in going
after what they want, but the water brings in the issue of dependency. We may
choose to care for other dependent beings, or we may feel helpless and
vulnerable ourselves and choose to get what we want from others who are
dependent and helpless.

We would expect natal or P Mars to also be prominent in
someone involved with power issues since Mars represents our sense of having
the right to do what we please. The natal Mars position in Pisces in the ninth
house connects it to extreme idealism, whether the person is driven by the
identification with God to only do the right and perfect thing, or the person
feels (often unconsciously) that his will is Absolute and he has a right to do
whatever he wants. A strongly sexed person (as suggested by the fixed sign
emphasis) but one who sees females as more powerful (Venus in Aries in the
tenth house and Moon in Leo in the first house) may look for sensual
satisfaction from powerless individuals (children or animals). As already
indicated, the square of Mars to Saturn shows some form of conflict with superior
power (the LAW, authority figures, or one’s own conscience). At first glance,
P Mars seems also unaspected with only an octile (semisquare) to Chiron, but it
is also closely square the Sun/Moon midpoint (which carries the same meaning as
a square to both the Sun and the Moon), and it opposes the Juno/Saturn midpoint
(equivalent to an opposition to both Juno and Saturn). Since natal Saturn held
conflict aspects to both Juno and Mars, the potential of problems is present
during any progressed aspects between them. P Mars had just reached a trine to
natal Moon when Raymond was acquitted of many of the charges, but its coming
aspects are less encouraging since it is moving into a conjunction with the MC
(equivalent to Saturn) and a trioctile (sesquisquare) to Pluto.

P MC was square Uranus and approaching Mercury when Raymond
was first charged with molesting a child and his and his family’s lives
revolutionized and subjected to the media. P Pallas, an asteroid often
associated with Libra whether with the cooperative or the competitive side, was
square the MC. I find Pallas emphasized in the charts of lawyers, consultants,
politicians, etc. as well as temporarily emphasized when individuals are
involved with such activities. P Pallas was also octile Pluto which had held a
trioctile to the MC for most of Raymond’s life. One of the real values of
secondary progressions is the long-term progressed aspects which remain in the
one-degree-orb for many years and mark basic talents or problems in the
individual’s character. A Pluto conflict aspect to the MC (or to Saturn or to
any planet in the tenth house or in Capricorn, to list some of the various ways
that astrology can “say the same thing”) shows a lesson involving the sharing
of possessions, pleasures or power (Pluto) and the LAW in some form. We may
give or take too much or too little or just have difficulty sharing as an
equal.

Another of Raymond’s long-term aspects was his P Uranus
square to Mercury and trioctile to Saturn. Leo, the tenth house placement of
Mercury, and the fifth house placement of Saturn, connect the pattern to
power. Taurus represents personal physical pleasure while Leo and the Leo
house again bring in the possible associations with sex, children, and fame or
notoriety.

Raymond’s P Moon, like P Mars, seems less involved until you
look at the midpoints. They are really meaningful and useful in astrology.
The center point between each pair of factors in the chart carries the same
meaning as if the two factors were conjunct at that point, so aspects to the
point are similar in meaning (though not as intense in power) as aspects to the
factors themselves. P Moon at the time of Raymond’s initial accusation was
conjunct his Sun/Pluto midpoint, his Pallas/Ceres midpoint, and his Juno/East
Point midpoint. P Moon was also square the Uranus/Saturn midpoint. The
meaning of all of these factors has been discussed and the combination fits an
intense issue involving the parent-child relationship, the sharing of sex and
power (or lack of it as a problem), and dealing with the LAW.

Where progressed systems look at the patterns which were
really in the sky at some period in the person’s life, “directions” produce a
set of patterns which never have existed or will exist during the person’s
life. With the different arcs of direction, everything in the chart is moved
the same amount, regardless of the natural speed of the factors or whether they
were direct or retrograde in motion. The whole chart is turned like a wheel
with all factors maintaining their natal distances from each other. As with
progressions, aspects must be within one degree of exact, but unlike
progressions, aspects can only be formed from directed planets to natal planets
since the directed planets maintain the same distances between each other as
was held by the natal planets. Of course, any natal aspect which is exact
within one degree becomes a lifetime aspect and hence very important.

The most common system of directions moves everything in the
natal chart the same distance that the Sun has moved in secondary progressions,
which is approximately one degree per year of life. Summer births will have a
slightly slower solar arc while winter births will be slightly faster. When
the Sun forms an aspect to the natal Sun, every directed planet will have the
same aspect to its natal position. We can see that when he was acquitted of
most of the charges against him on January 18, 1990, Raymond had everything semisextile its natal position. He also had directed (D) Venus quincunx Jupiter
and sextile Juno (but natally they formed a T-square), D Mars was conjunct
Venus, D Neptune was opposite the Sun, D Uranus was octile Jupiter and D Pluto
was quincunx the south lunar node, among other aspects.

It is possible to use any factor in the progressed chart to
produce an arc of direction. I was curious to see what Raymond’s Mars arc would
produce, so had it calculated on our CCRS computer program. The resulting
chart not only had interesting aspects; it pointed to some coming aspects which
could mark important times of change. The Mars Arc (MA) positions for January 18, 1990 put MA Pluto quincunx Chiron, MA true south lunar node quincunx Saturn,
MA Uranus conjunct Pluto, MA Vesta conjunct Pallas, MA East Point conjunct
Ceres, MA moon square Vesta, MA Venus square Moon and octile Pallas, etc. In
March 1990, starting aspects included MA Pallas square Jupiter and quincunx
Chiron. In June 1990, MA Mars will reach Raymond’s local (Manhattan Beach) MC,
and a month later, it reaches the natal MC. This pattern is similar in meaning
to Mars conjunct Saturn when “personal will meets the limits of personal
will.” In September 1990, MA Moon starts an octile to Jupiter, and in December
1990, MA Saturn starts a trioctile to the Sun. March of 1991 bring MA
Ascendant to the quincunx to natal Mars, which can also be very important. Of
course, the accuracy of the aspects involving angles (MC, Ascendant, etc.)
depends on the accuracy of the birth time.

Thanks to computers, we have enough techniques to write a
whole book on one event in the life of one person. But since no one has time
to do that, each astrologer has to experiment to determine which techniques
work best for him or her. As our readers know, my primary fascination is with
the asteroids.

I expected that if Raymond was really guilty, Asmodeus, the
“demon of lust” should be featured in some way. It turned up in Scorpio in his
fifth house with a trine to Juno, a square to Chiron, and semisextiles to
Jupiter and Saturn. In fact, it was at the midpoint of Jupiter/Saturn with all
of them in the fourth and fifth houses of home and children. It was also
trioctile the Sun/Moon midpoint. I have just started to read a new book by
Michael Harding and Charles Harvey called Working With Astrology, and
they emphasize the importance of that particular midpoint, suggesting that the
closest aspects to the Sun/Moon midpoint show the most central and important
dynamics of a chart. If this is true, and I have done very little testing so
far but what I have done supports their position, Raymond’s Vertex in
Sagittarius in the fifth house in a quincunx to the Sun/Moon is crucial since
the aspect is exact to the minute. Uranus in Leo holds a semisextile to
Sun/Moon that is within 9 minutes of exact, and Asmodeus is next closest with
an orb of 11 minutes from exact. It is interesting that these three factors with
close aspects to Sun/Moon are all in the sign or house of Leo—sex and children.

Raymond also has an asteroid associated with the Sun on his
natal Ascendant. Apollo is rising within 15 minutes of the Ascendant. Another
asteroid named for a sun god is Amun which is on Raymond’s Leo Moon within six
minutes of longitude. Two other sun gods are Aten at ten Aries and Helio at 5
Capricorn. Their midpoint is on Chiron in the eighth house within 12 minutes
of a trioctile of the Sun/Moon. So far, I’m impressed. Raymond has certainly
become famous through his power struggle with the law. We will see how it goes
when transiting Saturn makes its second pass opposite his natal Ascendant and
the Karmic chickens come home to roost.